With This Ring Read online

  With This Ring

  Ruth Hay

  Contents

  About This Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Afterword

  Also by Ruth Hay

  For all those women who hope love can come again.

  * * *

  “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.”

  ~ Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

  About This Book

  With This Ring is the fifth story in the Prime Time series.

  * * *

  The fifth novel in this series examines marriage in all its complexities.

  Lynn’s marriage is in crisis as she contemplates her husband’s retirement plans. Alina wonders if marriage is advisable so late in her life, and Anna faces a relationship possibility that turns her life upside down.

  This story will make you think about the institution of marriage in the 21st century in new ways, as you contemplate the significance of rings in your own life.

  Chapter One

  Lynn Kyriakos closed her bedroom door and sighed deeply. Stavros was working in his office at the university and was unlikely to disturb her task until his daily quota of graduate student marking was completed. The house was quiet, yet she felt a tinge of guilt as she spread the jewellery out in front of her. Decisions had to be made soon and she did not want any member of her family to know what she was doing.

  She could imagine Sarah’s exasperation at the very thought of her mother assigning personal items to family members as if she was an old lady about to depart this earth. Lynn sighed again. She was an old lady in her own eyes every time she glanced in a mirror and saw the ravages of time on a face once thought to be attractive. Departing this mortal coil might not be in the cards at the moment, but departing this country for the annual Easter gathering in Greece was looming, and that prospect made her extremely nervous.

  First there was the journey itself. The landing in Athens airport skimming past tall apartment buildings so close that, if she dared to look, people working in their kitchens could be seen clearly, was a nightmare. Then there was the family feasting that brought Stavros’ relatives from all over Greece to a lengthy gathering on the tiny island of Paros.

  Lynn had tried over and over again to fit into this group of voluble Greeks but she was now, and always, an outsider; the strange English woman who had married their brother, nephew, son, when he was far away in England as a young man. The unspoken comment, although Lynn’s knowledge of Greek was so elementary that she could not be sure the comment had been spoken many times, was that she had stolen Stavros from his family in a moment of weakness while he was suffering from homesickness.

  Spending the month on Paros was for Lynn like being immersed in an alien environment where she was unable to communicate. On the few occasions when one of the younger members of the family tried to speak to her in English, Lynn found little in common to share, and the girl would soon melt back into the laughter and conviviality of her family reunion with no attempt to conceal her relief.

  Lynn acknowledged much of this was her own fault. She dreaded the annual trip for months before it arrived and her mental attitude was tainted by these negative thoughts. In the early years when she was able to avoid the trip because her mother, Isobel, was so ill and required constant supervision, Lynn felt ashamed that Stavros expressed his sincere appreciation of her sacrifice. In fact, she was far happier supervising her mother’s dementia episodes than pretending to enjoy the Kyriakos’ celebrations.

  Later, when Sarah was grown and married, she occasionally asked her mother to look after Caroline and Mike while their parents grabbed a quick spring break on their own. Lynn always eagerly volunteered to stay in Sussex with her grandchildren.

  Stavros eventually realized his wife’s participation in the annual event was not a holiday for her. He began to take her travelling with him for part of the month in Greece and Lynn found a different attachment for her husband’s birth place when he revealed his love for the history and culture of Greece that was so much a part of his life.

  These short trips helped Lynn’s understanding of both the country and her husband, but did little to stem the nerves she experienced each time she contemplated the Easter family gathering.

  * * *

  She spread the rings out on the dark cloth she had laid over her bed. The camera was ready and she had a set of recipe cards and a pen nearby. She was determined not to leave the room until the job of choosing who would get each ring had been completed.

  She knew this act was a reaction to the looming departure for Greece. There was always the fear that she would not survive another flight, so anxious did airplane travel now seem to her after many years of tension. But there was another reason for her haste, and this one was a constant worry.

  Her mother Isobel had never been really well after Lynn’s brother Philip had left home suddenly. The occasional depression from which she had suffered during her children’s childhood became a mental deterioration that slowly developed into dementia. Having watched her mother slide into confusion and disassociation, Lynn knew how devastating the condition could be for any family member trapped in the home with such an illness.

  When her mother died in the Mayfield Manor Nursing Home, it was an end to a saga of tragedy that set her daughter free but left behind a lingering suspicion that one day Lynn herself might succumb to the very same mental confusion and inflict the same trauma on her husband or on their own beloved child, Sarah.

  The act of choosing and labelling her rings was an attempt to stave off that fear of dementia by preparing for a future when she might not be able to do such simple tasks. For the same reason, Lynn refused to let household junk accumulate in her home. She dreaded the thought of Sarah and Caroline forced to deal with boxes of papers, old ornaments and bags of used clothing.

  Trips to the local charity shops were a regular occurrence in Lynn’s life. As a result of this policy, Stavros kept his office at home locked and used the cupboards to store any comfortable older clothes he wished to save from his wife’s grasping fingers. He thought she was afflicted with an obsessive need to tidy everywhere and she let him believe that was the reason.

  Where to start? There was her mother’s wedding ring. Lynn picked up the worn silver band and rolled it between her finger and thumb. Her mother had no engagement ring and this one ring was lost when Isobel stopped wearing any jewellery. A few weeks after her mother’s move to the nursing home, when Lynn was digging in the garden to make the property more attractive to buyers, she had found the ring glinting in a trowel of dirt. The sight of this ring still evoked sadness. It felt as if her mother, by losing her wedding ring had deliberately cast away any last concerns for her marriage and consequently for her children. Lynn knew this was illogical, but the feeling persisted.

  “I’ll give this one to Philip, perhaps,” she murmured. “He may never wear it, but he should have something of our mother’s, now that he knows, thanks to Anna Mason’s detective work, why she devoted so much of her life to his welfare.”

  She placed the silver ring to one side and picked up a chunky Scottish regimental ring that had been worn by her father, Kyle Purdy, during the Second World War.

  “No point in this one going to Philip,” she thought out loud. “His birth father was far away in Canada although he owed more than he ever realized to the man who brought him up and gave him a home.”

  She made out a card with the name of her grandson Mike, and took a photograph of the signet ring and card together.

  “That’s done, for sure! Now, what about Caroline?”

  Lynn had a great affection for her granddaughter. A lovely girl with talents and abilities in every field she cared to pursue, Caroline had endeared herself even more by taking on a role of caregiver and innovator in her great-grandmother Isobel’s final months in the nursing home. Together with a group of college friends, Caroline had completed a project to brighten and improve the lives of all the residents in a variety of ways. Her current interest in local politics stemmed from those experiences. Lynn hoped she would live long enough to see what Caroline would do with her life. She suspected it would be something amazing for the benefit of society.

  “Yes, this one!” She selected a beautiful amethyst ring with diamond shoulder stones and turned it to the light so that the stones glittered. She could not help smiling at the memory of the day she turned fifty and bought the ring on an impulse just because it made her happy to see it, and because she wanted to celebrate surviving to that advanced age.

  “That was almost twenty years ago!” she exclaimed in amazement. “I still get a thrill when I wear this one and I know Caroline has admired it.”

  The third card was quickly written and photographed.

  Her own wedding ring and engagement ring were removed from her left hand with the little tug that reminded h
er of the groove worn into that finger by so many years of constant wear. The pair was not a matched set, as seemed to be popular for today’s young brides. Lynn’s engagement ring was a second-hand, small, diamond solitaire, found in an antique shop in London, and labeled as an ‘estate ring’. Stavros had offered to replace it with a larger, more imposing diamond when they had been married for ten years and accumulated some finances. Lynn had always refused to entertain the idea. The old ring was precious to her as a symbol of first love. At times, even now, she was astonished that the tall, dark, and handsome man who was her husband, had chosen her and given her this ring as a sign of his intent to marry. Her simple wedding band was similarly inexpensive. It had once had to have gold added where the metal had thinned with use, but it also held too many memories to be rejected in favour of more ‘bling’, as today’s celebrities called it on TV.

  These two would belong to Sarah one day. Lynn placed the rings back on her finger once the choice was recorded and prayed it would be many years before she had to relinquish them.

  She had nothing left for her son-in-law, David. Perhaps Stavros would give his wedding ring or his university ring to David. She had no idea if Stavros would be willing to do this. Perhaps he intended to leave items to a favourite brother or nephew in Greece?

  Lynn had no wish to ask her husband about this as it would open up a whole discussion she wished to avoid at all costs. Although their life in the small town of Horam was convenient to Sarah and David’s home in Uckfield, and within reasonable travelling distance from Stavros’ teaching work at Sussex University, the topic of her husband’s approaching retirement, and the location of their retirement residence, was the very worst of all her fears.

  As a classics professor, Stavros not only spent his days teaching about Greek and Roman civilization, he also conducted courses in the summer months in Greece, where his graduate students and other members of the public who had an interest in archaeology, would tour the major historical sites and participate in digs in some remote areas.

  Lynn constantly worried that the predominance of Greek relatives and his involvement in Greek studies would overwhelm the pleasant life they had enjoyed in England. When Stavros had the chance to choose, where would he wish to spend his retirement years? Many English residents, including couples who were friends of theirs, had fled the uncertain summers of England for the baking heat of France, Spain or Greece. It seemed inevitable that Stavros would follow their lead and return to his homeland.

  The trouble was that Lynn had no desire to leave her own homeland. She hated too much sun exposure and was allergic to insect bites. She was most comfortable on cloudy days when the English sun played peek-a-boo and lit up the glorious, verdant countryside of the Weald.

  How was this dilemma to be resolved? Lynn could hardly deny her husband the retirement he might choose and yet, she could not see herself accompanying him to an environment so far from her daughter and family, in a foreign land where she could never feel settled.

  Casting aside these upsetting thoughts, she replaced the rings in her jewellery box and clicked the lid shut with rather more force than the task required. She had accomplished one item on her list of preparations for the Easter trip. If only she could lock away all her worries in a box and throw away the key.

  Stavros would retire from his teaching job in the next few years and then the decision would be made, one way or the other. Until then she must try not to fixate on the uncertainties of the future and spoil what time might remain here, in England, with her family.

  Chapter Two

  Saving his notes on tomorrow’s conferences with his graduate students, Dr. Stavros Kyriakos removed the memory stick from his computer and stretched his back to relieve the cramp hours over the keyboard created. He swiveled his chair around and rested his eyes on the fresh green leaves of the willow that brushed against his second floor office window.

  He badly needed a few minutes to clear his head and organize his thoughts about his personal life before heading home to the quiet street in Horam where he and Lynn lived.

  Although spring was usually a busy term at the university, this year was so much more complicated for him. The decision about whether or not to submit his resignation and collect his pension would have to be made before he left for Easter. This was a momentous choice and one about which he realized he was in two minds.

  On one hand was the definite freedom of leaving behind university politics with its eternal meetings about budget and the competition for subject hours, office help, and classroom space.

  For years he dared not miss a meeting in case a motion should be approved to cut his teaching hours or his research budget and cast his work back several years from which point he would have to struggle once again to reclaim lost territory.

  It was a battle he had fought too many times. The study of classics was not a priority in the university’s lexicon. There were no grants attached to Ancient Greek and Roman courses but it was what he had always wanted to do with his life. As soon as he acquired the qualifications, he worked and waited until an elderly professor finally retired and relinquished the position to his younger colleague.

  “Now I am the elderly colleague,” he whispered with some chagrin. “Who is waiting in the wings to take over my position? Will the department seize the opportunity to close down classical studies completely if I leave?” He knew Latin had vanished from the curriculum in a similar scenario several years ago.

  Turning his head to left and right and rubbing his stiff neck, he could not help noticing the bookshelves crammed with text books and even his own writing on Greek culture and civilization as the foundation of modern democracy. The books were interspersed with a finely sculptured head of Athena and a delicate pottery vase with the elegant paintings of heroes and monsters striving to win glory. There was also a collection of coins and potsherds and framed scenes of the many archaeological sites where he had laboured in the summers.

  Would retirement also mean the end of these summer courses in Greece with his most promising young students and the adults whose fees for back-breaking work under the sun made the entire enterprise financially feasible?

  This summer’s dig in Aegina was fully subscribed already, although much of the travel and site organization was still to be finalized. Would this be his last chance to uncover something amazing hidden beneath the dust of ages; something that would make his name revered in the annals of historical research? If these summer courses were to be continued under his guidance, a part-time contract with the university would have to be negotiated soon; and with whom? Of late, deans of the university’s departments had been falling like leaves in the autumn. Each summer meant the danger of new personnel; the new brooms who might wish to sweep clean the traditional, and uneconomic, areas of study.

  “Damn it all!” he exclaimed, drumming his hefty fists against the oak desk. “I have other things to think about.” He pushed himself up from the chair and moved to the wall where a map of Greece was pinned to a bulletin board beside a variety of timetables and department dicta.

  Thrusting a finger at Paros, he pictured in his mind’s eye the piece of land near the Aegean for which he had made tentative enquiries about purchasing a dilapidated house and several acres leading down to a curved and secluded beach. The whole parcel of land was sheltered by a headland on the west and the location was far enough away from any hotels or tourist areas to be not only reasonable in price, but also, as yet undiscovered by the casual traveller. His own intimate knowledge of the island of his birth permitted him to seek out such places only the locals would know about.